Volunteers honor final resting place

A group of volunteers gathered to clean-up Pleasant Shade Cemetery in Hampton

July 03, 2011|By Shannon Humphrey, shumphrey@dailypress.com|247-4795

HAMPTON—Artistine Mears-Lang organized a group of volunteers in late May to clean up Pleasant Shade Cemetery off of Shell Road in Hampton, a final resting place that had been left to take care of itself after owners of the property left the area.

"My sister-in-law comes here to visit her grandmother's grave, and she told me about the condition it was in," said Lang. "When we came out to the property there was a woman in her 80s pulling up grass with her bare hands to get to a family member's grave to put something on it."

Overgrown grass and weeds had taken over the entire cemetery, growing past waist-level, until Lang, her husband, Darnell, and 100 volunteers came together to clean it up.

Volunteers ranged from members of the Newport News Sheriff's Department, to firefighters from Stations #3 and 9 in Hampton, to individuals who just wanted to do their part to help.

The clean-up lasted from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the afternoon on May 28. More work on the cemetery is being planned by Lang, as well as a way to keep up the cemetery once all of the initial clean-up is completed.

"The problem is that the cemetery was privately owned, but the corporation that owned it, dissolved and move on," Darnell Lang said. "Since it was privately owned, the city is saying they're not allowed to come on to the property to cut the grass and service the area."

Volunteers cut grass, weeded and took out overgrown trees during the clean-up, work that didn't go unappreciated by those with family members buried in the cemetery who also came out to help.

"One 83-year-old woman came up to me when we were done and said that it looked so nice, and how much it meant to her what we were doing, because her son and husband were both buried here," Mears-Lang said.

Cleaning up and doing work in the community isn't anything new to Mears-Lang, who is the chairperson for the Newport News Police Department Crime Watch Coalition. That group is known for picking up hazardous debris reported by people in the community, and getting other jobs done.

This is the first time, however, that she decided to take on a cemetery, and a project of this magnitude.

"A cemetery is a sacred place for people to come out and visit with their loved ones, remember the times they spent with them," she said. "It never should have been neglected this way."

A new flag was also hung in the cemetery, something else that wasn't maintained in the cemetery.

"The old American flag was in shreds," said Darnell Lang, "and there are veterans buried out here. That's no way to honor them."

The cemetery holds a historical significance to the area, as well, according to Darnell Lang.

"I've been told this was the only cemetery African Americans were allowed to be buried in a time ago," he said. "Joseph Thomas Newsome, you know, from the Newsome House, is buried out here. We should be honoring our history and keeping this place up."

Both Artistine and Darnell Lang hope efforts made by the volunteers will encourage other people to get involved and help develop a plan for maintaining the property in the future.

During a regular monthly meeting of the East End Neighborhood Association, some of those plans began to take shape.

"More than 75 people, including [Former] Delegate Mary Christian of Hampton and Newport News Mayor McKinley Price attended the meeting," said Artistine Lang. "The group will be organizing committees to address the issues for future maintenance and repairs."

The Hampton Sheriff's Office will be accessing Pleasant Shade and other cemeteries identified by the city's Cemetery Committee to determine what might need to be done if a cemetery is declared abandoned, according to Mears-Lang.

"Any action taken by the sheriff would be considered a one-time action, and not be routine maintenance, so the plan for Pleasant Shade will be to determine who the well-known dignitaries are—mayors, attorneys, others—that are buried there, and to further try to declare it an historical site," she said.

The next planned meeting for the group will be on Monday, July 25 at 6 p.m. on 2300 Wickham Ave. in Newport News.

"It took love in our hearts to come out here and fulfill the work that needed to be done, just like it's going to take more people with that same love to maintain it in the years to come," she said.

"It's not enough just to complain about how something looks, how it's not being kept up," Darnell Lang said. "We can't just say, 'Oh, it's the city's job,' and go about our way. We need to come together as a community to keep this area clean and honor those that are buried here, as well as their families."

Want to help?

For more information on the ongoing efforts to keep Pleasant Shade Cemetery clean, or to volunteer to help, contact Artistine Mears-Lang, 244-2832 or email arm17@verizon.net.

The next meeting of will be 6 p.m. July 25 at 2300 Wickham Ave. in Newport News.